It isn’t just on game shows that people win new cars. Los Angeles commercial interior designer Barbara Ostroff hit the jackpot at work.

Managers at her company, HOK, decided they needed to get everyone jazzed about obtaining a key environmental credential. So at a retreat in Ojai last summer, they came up with the idea of putting everyone with certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design into a drawing for a Prius.

“We believe in the education of our staff,” said Riccardo Mascia, managing principal.

Ninety-three employees with Leed certification, about half having earned it in the last few months of 2008 as part of the office challenge, were entered in the drawing. The goal was to have more employees Leed certified by the end of 2008 than any of the other 28 HOK offices worldwide. They needed 35 certifications; they got 46.

“We wanted to lead the rest of the company rather than follow it,” Mascia said.

On Jan. 28, employees met in the parking lot of the Culver City office to find out who would win the car.

Ostroff, who’s been with the firm for 10 years and is now working on the Scripps Hospital project in La Jolla, went into shock when her name was announced.

“I’ve never won anything in my life,” she said. “I’ve been trying to replace my gas-guzzling Ford Explorer that gets 12 miles per gallon. This is the exact car that I would have bought.”